handleyourshit | Duplicity Inbox

This is Rosita. I'll hit you back when I can.

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"He made me feel safe," she says, a bit heavily, given how it ended. But even then, Abraham died instead of anyone else in that circle. She knows for a fact that's what what he would have wanted. That he died happy to be able to do that.

"Not because he had to protect me, it wasn't about that. It was something else. Space beside him maybe. I wanted to see him again as soon as he left. Even shitty situations felt better just knowing he was there."

"Have you felt safe since then?" Because that seems like the worst part: having had it and never again.

"Not like that," she admits. "But we live in a dangerous world, Jesus. Any of us can go at any time. I'm no different and I've known that for a long time. If I die, I die."

"But you weren't talking about that kind of safety," he points out. And then, "I feel safe with you. Here. I can do things with you and tell you things I can't with anyone else."

She smiles then, finally looks back up at him. She's glad. She is.

"Not that kind of safety, but - this kind. Abraham made me feel physically safe, but he also made me feel like someone knew me. Like someone would miss me if I were gone, someone needed me to be here. You know me. You would miss me. But you don't need me to survive."

Turns out Abraham didn't either. "Turns out I don't need Abraham. Knowing that is part of not regretting it, too."

"I'm glad you don't." It would be such a heavy thing, he thinks: having Abraham walk out on her the cruel way he did, then watching him die the brutal way he did, and then having to hate that any of the good parts ever happened.

"I try not to regret anything I've done. I'm good at that. But the things I couldn't do anything about, that's...harder." And you can't control when a loved one is just done with you.

"Yeah," she agrees, smoothing her finger over the wearing edge of her splint for something to distract herself. It is harder.

"It's why I'm so protective over you here. I don't want you to ever know what that feels like. I want you to have the chance to love and be loved, you deserve that, especially now. But I will fucking murder someone again if they hurt you the way Abraham hurt me. If they lie to you like Eugene lied to me."

Jesus is extremely good at reading people, but with Alexandrians he's sometimes wrong. For instance, Daryl and Rick weren't the people he'd assumed they were when he saw them.

And Rosita? He never guessed she was protective of him. Not to the degree she's talking about. (He does not for one second think it's hyperbole when she says she will murder someone. And he does not miss the 'again' in that sentence.)

But what the vapor in the room brings out of him comes from a younger place in him, where his fears still live, and what he gets from what Rosita says is that she loves him. That he is, indeed, safe with her.

"All I want is for you to be happy, too, Ro. I never would have suggested Jacob if I thought for a second he would lie to you and hurt you the way you've been hurt already."

It's exactly what she means; in a world where everyone has blood on their hands, the only way Rosita - indeed, anyone who's happy in Alexandria - knows how to show how serious she is about her affection involves a willingness not to hesitate or back down, ever, when blood is on the table. She is not ashamed of it and no one can make her.

But even if she didn't know what, exactly, Jesus got out of Rosita signing a contract with anyone let alone a friend of his friend's, she did trust him enough to entertain it. To do it. She considers him now.

"How did you know, though? What makes you so sure?"

"Everyone I talked to about him said he was kind. But he's Vrenille's friend which means he can hold his own. When I spoke to him, I just had a good feeling about it." He trusts his instincts.

"You deserve someone kind for a change, but not someone you have to worry too much about. I wanted someone you could just enjoy being with for a while."

Kind is terrifying. It's nice to dabble in for a while, she's attached to Siddiq for his sweetness, loved when Abraham was - but it's terrifying. It's what crumples under pressure, the first thing most people give up when they have to start cutting off dead weight, herself included.

"Well, he's an assassin," she allows. "And he's hurting. I think things are going as smoothly as they can given the givens."

An assassin. So that's what Jacob hadn't wanted to tell him in Veracity.
(Which is surprising, considering everything Jacob already knows about what Jesus and Rosita do regularly to get by).

"He's a bartender. How are you keeping him from trying to give you drinks?"

"Same way I am everyone," she shrugs, and holds up her arm.

Which is where she would normally have left it, when she has the ability to stop talking when she wants to, which is not now.

"Doctor said I could take the splint off now but it's a great excuse, and I think I can get a few more weeks out of it before anyone starts to wonder too much."

He nods, worried about this but he's worried about every aspect of her pregnancy here already.

"You can bring people to Marked. I'll make sure your drinks are just juice or soda."

It's such a small thing, and such an unnecessary kindness. Rosita hasn't balked about refusing alcohol and if push came to shove she would flat tell people it wasn't their business - people can just choose not to drink - but it's so pervasive in this city that it always catches her an odd look anyway.

She is uninterested in odd looks, thank you very much, or being drugged without knowing it, so she smiles.

"And when I'm a SIN guard, I won't arrest you."

One of those unexpectedly bright, playful looks.

"You'd have to catch me first anyway."

"Oh, if I had to -" she answers, laughing, both a tease and not.

"I'd just text you offering to gossip."

"Oh. That's how you think you get me, is it?" He leans closer. "Gossip about who?"

Her smile broadens. Gotcha.

"Rain check," she promises. "Or we can gossip about you, and how you're actually doing."

He frowns, thinking, then shrugs. "I'm all right. Usual lack of sleep, usual hoarding tendencies." Gossiping about himself isn't nearly as interesting, Rosita.

For whom?

"And none of it is changing at all, even with all these new people around?"

He wouldn't answer this if not for the mist. He takes a breath, finds he can't fight the words, and just gives in.

"I can't sleep unless someone else is around. And if they're not like us, I can't sleep around them because I worry they won't know what to listen for. I tried drinking before bed--it just made me wake up more often through the night. Drinking was never a big feature in my life before, anyway. I have enough friends now I don't need aphrodisiacs to meet quota, though. The contact is...nice. Except when it's not. Do you have those moments, too?"

"Contact - sex - is always how I've dealt. With everything." When she isn't just bullheadedly forging ahead anyway, which only goes so far, which isn't for everyone.

"But I don't like people as much as I think I used to, at least not this many people, not these kinds of people." People not like them. "That's what begins to wear on me, and when I've had enough, then I've had enough, period."

So, yes and no.

"I did once I knew where to look." But then he'd found other ways of coping with things, so sex never took off as a primary mechanism for him, just like drugs--thankfully--never did either.

"What 'kinds' of people?"

"People who have never had to do the things we've done," she tries to get around it, but for someone who shares her words out more often than not, apparently now she can't shut up.

"I'm not judging them, I'm glad they don't know what it's like to scrape a layer of mold off the top of something to chance that what's underneath is good, or stab one of their friends in the head, or push for a week straight to get to a safe house. But it makes me feel like I have an extra head or something, sometimes."